Geographies of Infrastructure Systems: The User's Lifeworld and Interface Design

Abstract

Some of the most important features of modern societies are the specialisation of knowledge, the development of technology and its ubiquitous integration in everyday practices. Apparently, the routine use of complex transport, communication and retail systems can only work out as long as a continuous encoding and decoding of spatial information takes place. In this paper different modes of system-user-interaction and the involved spatial concepts will be examined. The outcome is a framework of three conceptual types of interaction (or translation) between the geography of the system and the geography of the user's lifeworld. First, the user learns about the internal spatial code of the system to achieve 'white-box-transparency'. Second, efforts in interface-design show the attempt for 'lifeworld-simulation' by replicating the individual's spatial perception. Third, common geographical imaginations, names of cities, regions or nations, can serve as a 'third language' which both the system and the user can refer to.

Section Editorial: Geoinformation and Society: Practising and Comprehending Geomedia

“…Technological devices appear (literally) as black boxes whose internal processes are hidden from the user's eye, making technological systems rather opaque to the general user (FELGENHAUER 2012). The implication of this trend for the education of (future) citizens who are confidently and competently using geospatial technologies to pursue their interests is a requirement for an educational approach that transcends the mere acquisition of technical skills (how to use a particular technology), or in GIDDENS's (1984) terms practical consciousness.…”